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tv   Andrea Mitchell Reports  MSNBC  November 28, 2012 10:00am-11:00am PST

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right now on "andrea mitchell reports" campaigning again. president obama urges middle-class voters at the white house to press congress for tax hikes on the rich. >> i can only do it with the help of the american people, tweet using #my 2 k, e-mail, post it on a member of congress's facebook wall. do what it takes to communicate a sense of urgency. >> on the other side of pennsylvania avenue, john boehner says he thinks there is a way to avoid that cliff. >> it's time for the president and democrats to get serious about the spending problem that our country has, but i'm optimistic we can continue to work together to avert this crisis and sooner rather than later. >> and look who's coming to lunch. mitt romney will break bread with the president at the white house tomorrow. >> pledge of allegiance, anti-tax crusader grover norquist warns republicans
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against breaking their promise. >> it is possible if the republicans lose in such a way they've got their fingerprints on the murder weapon, then you have a problem. bush couldn't run again in '92 successfully because he had his fingerprints on a very bad deal, bad on spending and bad on taxes and he broke his word. >> what is alan simpson's message to grover? we'll ask him in a few minutes. >> how do you deal with guys who came to stop government or grover wandering the earth in his white robe saying he wants to drown government in the bathtub. i hope he slips in there with it. >> susan rice back for more on capitol hill with failing to persuade more republican senators. >> i would need to have additional information before i could support her nomination. i think it will be premature for me to reach that judgment now. >> i would just ask the
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president to step back. >> senate republican kelly ayotte, who has threatened to block a rice nomination, joins us ahead. and powerball fever sweeping the nation. the jackpot now jumps to $500 million. the second highest in lottery history. what would you do with your winning ticket. >> i would take my entire family on a cruise around the world. >> a sports car for me. >> aston martin. >> i'll pinch myself. >> i would pinch myself too. good day, i'm andrea mitchell live in washington. thanks for joining us. you can bet this is not the way mitt romney had hoped to get to the white house. instead of measuring the drapes in the oval office he'll be the president's guest for lunch. their first meeting since that last debate. joining me now for our daily fix, chris cizilla, msnbc contributor and managing editor of post politics.com and from "usa today" susan page. what do you think is on the
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menu? >> some people on twitter when i tweeted out suggest crow might be served. look, this is, i think, there's no press coverage. this is not closed press. there is no press coverage. a private meeting between the two of them. i think it's designed to say the election is over, mitt romney did win about 47.5% of the vote of the american public, a recognition of that fact and recognition by the president if there is a grand bargain to be done he's going to need the help of republicans. i don't know how much mitt romney will play a role in that. i think mitt romney this is the guy i beat, he represents a significant constituency that voted against me, we're going to bring him in and talk to him. i don't expect much substantive to come to it. symbolism, saying the election is over and move on and work for the country. >> it is symbolic. we've seen this drama before, but in the past it's been with a republican nominee who frankly carries more political weight within his own party and held a
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constituency there. in this case he's not elected to anything, not a sitting senator, a defeated presidential candidate but someone who still plays a role in politics. this is about sending a signal of niceness and appealing to higher angels we as a country can move on. >> maybe simple civility, something we don't have a lot of here. think about the last two people who lost the election. john mccain, and his news, john kerry, still a big force in the senate and maybe a nominee for secretary of state. it's hard to see mitt romney in the roles. remember that one of the ideas that mitt romney floated during the presidential campaign, just might be part of the deal that gets -- >> which is the cap. >> a cap. he would put a pretty low cap, $17,000 on high income taxpayers. it's possible that will survive even though mitt romney's presidential prospects did not. >> or could be a $50,000 cap or something even higher than that. now chris cizilla, let's talk about the lack of civility or the contentiousness of this susan rice situation where she's back on the hill today.
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let me play a little bit of susan collins, republican from maine, known as a moderate, discussing the possibility of a john kerry nomination to be secretary of state. >> i think john kerry would be an excellent appointment and would be easily confirmed by his colleagues. >> at the same time, there was really no love there for susan rice and what she did, which was surprising to a lot of us watching, was she raised the 1998 bombings, the embassy bombings in kenya and tanzania when susan rice was the assistant secretary for african affairs in the bill clinton administration in basically in the state department back then and what was her responsibility over that? susan collins said we hadn't learned the lessons and she had troubling questions about that. she asked susan rice about it and susan rice said she would
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have to refresh her memory. >> i think the benghazi controversy opened the door to other senators, other critics of susan rice, to raise questions, including about her tenure when she was assistant secretary of state for african affairs and there is -- there has been criticism of her role there. i mean in some ways i think susan collins' criticism has more potential, is more worrisome for advocates for susan rice and even the criticism we heard from senators mccain and graham yesterday because she is a moderate, because she is a woman senator, because she's not the first one you think would be a critic of the president's pick of susan rice to be secretary of state and because she offered this great rose petal in the path of john kerry to be the secretary of state. >> the fiscal cliff negotiations the president trying to rally the middle class in favor of the tax increases on the rich, what is the next step in terms of the
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real key players which is the president and john boehner? i know they've been talking, there have been a lot of conversations on the phone. is there going to be a meeting? >> you know, andrea, i hesitates to make predictions but i would say that my guess we're probably in a similar place in 14 days as we are today, which is they're talking, the tax rates on the wealthy entitlement reform, these things are still on the table but we haven't had anything defintive. congress and washington in general works best and sometimes works only under a very tight deadline. i can't imagine anything getting done in the next 10 to 14 days, other than kind of the participants, the important participants getting together whether on the phone or in person to hash it out. i think we're looking at kind of closer to christmas rather than further from christmas for a deal if there is a deal chris cizilla, susan page, thank you very much. joining me now is a man that needs no introduction, former
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senator alan simpson, withers skin bowles and be on the group with a group of bipartisan business leaders and deficit hawks getting something done, meeting with republicans and democrats. do you have any more optimism let me point out you and your pal erskine bowles, he was quoted as saying he's more pessimistic something will be accomplished. >> my poor dear partner, bloodied but unvowed, six months ago erskine was saying i think we can get there. now, he's pessimistic. would be a word. we were just with a group go big or go home, democrats and republicans alike, they've got signatures of over 200 -- 102 house members, half of the senate working for us, equally divided on both sides, you have to have something bipartisan.
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you can write it on a single sheet of paper if it had firewalls and triggers, and if it were just signed by an equal number of democrats and republicans, the markets would lay off of us. if they continue to see this dead-head struggling, the same old stuff, they're going to punish us. when they do the guy that will get hurt is the little guy, middle class, inflation, interest rates, that's who gets hammered. what an irony. >> senator simpson, let me ask you this. a lot photograph cuss on getting republicans to, you know, break the bond with grover norquist and agree to some taxes. is it equally difficult to get democrats to agree to touch medicare? >> not when you have the president say he's going to do it. he said it during the grand bargain that didn't become too grand or a bargain, but he talked about entitlement reform and he's still talking about entitlement reform. he will do something in that area, as long as he can hammer those guys over $250,000.
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and make them pay more taxes. how $250,000 got to the point where that's the, quote, middle class is beyond my comprehens n comprehension. 100 would have been more appropriate for more real live people. he's going to get that. hopefully he can do it without doing rate increases, which are going to cost. anybody who is, quote, rich shouldn't mind paying more taxes. i don't understand that at all. and i don't understand that somebody, if you let them earn more money is going to use it to hire people. they may likely buy another kind of rig or a toy or something like that. i don't know. but all i know is one thing, you can't cut -- you can't cut spending away out of this hole, you can't tax your way out of this hole and you can't grow your way out of this hole. you have to have everything. have to have it. >> well, grover norquist was at a political playbook breakfast with mike allen, we'll talk to
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mike in a few moments, here's norquist talking about what he calls impure thoughts. i think that has something to do with taxes, not sex. >> a handful of people having impure thoughts that under certain circumstances. >> impure thoughts? >> yes. >> what do you mean by impure thoughts? >> meaning they haven't -- >> family event so be careful. >> they've been thinking about maybe voting for tax increases. they haven't done it. >> is that what republicans do? >> they don't think about it. there's just a few of them talking about it on tv. the good news is most of them don't. >> do you have any impure thoughts about grover norquist? >> plenty. but you know, here's a good guy with a very bad idea and he was gathering up those signatures back in the '80s and early '90s when inflation was zip, when unemployment was zip, and anybody who would sign anything before they come to congress and hear the debate and participate in it hopefully and get into the
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floor, management and the mending process and the conference committees, those people i mean why would you do that? it's like selling your soul. grover i said would be irrelevant in two years, and i say that, got about another year and a half to go. he will be irrelevant. this guy is a zell lot, zelllot who is one having forgotten his purpose redoubles his efforts and he sees the crumbling of the great house of cards. it's like jarvis out in california back in the late '70s. he's left schools destitute, left institutions destitute. you can't come in and play this kind of a game when everything has changed in america and this time everything has changed because it's all coming to pass on december 31sst and grover babe is losing a person a day and he knows it. so what does he use to cover that? cutesies. little smart alecs. i know that. i don't know who else does that.
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i haven't done that. he is becoming irrelevant. and you can see it in his eyes. he knows the game is up. because good people of good faith have decided that instead of being republicans, or democrats, they're americans. and instead of being beholden to grover norquist, and the aarp, they're beholden to the united states of america. those guys are going to take their lumps. >> alan simpson, do you think there's going to be a deal? >> well, my friend erskine, the numbers guys, he does the numbers and i do the color, when he says he doesn't think we're going to get a deal -- let me tell you, he's working every day. he's here. i have to get the morning plane out of cody at 6:00 a.m., get here at 3:30, he's here within an hour and a half away, he sees these people, the president, jack lew, knows these people, he's the last guy on earth that balanced the budget in '96 and when he's down on this, you got to be sure that this guy, this
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wonderful savvy and intelligent, sharp guy, a perfect companion, is saying this stuff, you want to believe it. that's the sad part. >> do you think this would discourage him from wanting to be considered for treasury secretary? his name has been in the mix? >> well, he said he would be very pleased to do that. he shared that with me personally, that as long as they move the treasury department to north carolina, to charlotte. so i don't think -- >> he's worked so hard on this, so passionate about it. you don't think he could be persuaded? >> never. he wouldn't want to serve in a dysfunctional government. he's a guy that wants to make things work and has proven it all his life with, you know, chancellor of the university of north carolina, everything he's done has been to make something work and the two of us, after two and a half years of wandering around in this stuff, where guys come up who have the button they're in congress, that say save us from ourselves, you
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know, you're dealing with a dysfunctional government and so he's going to say and has said, i would come if i saw a government that functioned. if democrats and republicans talked, if compromise wasn't a filthy word, if you can't learn to compromise an issue without compromising yourself you should never be in congress and sure as hell should never get married. >> well, senator alan simpson, i know personally is very well married, so you've got to be an optimistic. >> great to see you. >> thanks. >> and coming next, senator kelly ayotte, one of the chief critics of susan rice as secretary of state. no, it's worse -- look, our taxes are about to go up. not the taxes on our dividends though, right? that's a big part of our retirement. oh, no, it's dividends, too. the rate on our dividends would more than double. but we depend on our dividends to help pay our bills. we worked hard to save. well, the president and congress have got to work together to stop this dividend tax hike.
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two more republican senators are raising tough questions about susan rice's qualifications to be secretary of state. among them, in a meeting
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yesterday, senator kelly ayotte republican from new hampshire, she and mccain and graham met with the ambassador yesterday. senator, thanks very much for joining us. i wanted to ask you -- >> thank you, andrea. >> you said you had a number of concerns, chief among them, do you think she's not qualified to be secretary of state? because your office then indicated that you would put a hold on her nomination at this stage. >> i've said from the beginning that at this point there's still substantial questions that need to be answered and until they were answered, as to what happened and yesterday we had another changing story on the talking points unfortunately, that certainly if she were nominated -- she's not been nominated yet -- i would put a hold until those questions were answered. then i would pass judgment. i do have serious concerns about what i heard. first of all, i think there was an impression left that somehow she just went on and repeated the unclassified talking points. bear in mind, that that's not the case. she did review the daily
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intelligence briefings as part of her position in the u.n. and, in fact, reviewed the briefings that contained the references to al qaeda that individuals with ties to al qaeda were involved. and then yet, went on the sunday show and left a very different impression. let's not forget that on those sunday shows on "meet the press" as well as "face the nation" she also made the statement that al qaeda was decimated. and so it left a misleading impression to the american people. i was also troubled that they knew by the 21st the acting director of the cia said that the information about the reaction to the video and the protest was wrong and that no one corrected it, including ambassador rice, even though she had left that impression on every single network, op every sunday show. that left me very concerned about that as well. >> did she say to you that she had reviewed intelligence specifically about benghazi, that had the additional information? she couldn't say so publicly.
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had she reviewed that intelligence? did she affirm that to you or are you assuming that she had? >> she did review it. >> so, in other words, she knew better than what you're saying that she knew better? >> yes. that's one of the questions i have and one of the questions that i didn't feel i got a satisfactory answer to, which is if you knew that even though the classified version, obviously, had references to al qaeda in it being involved or individuals with ties to al qaeda involved in it, how could you not know when you go on every sunday show and not include that fact that it would leave a very different impression to the american people, particularly on two of those networks where she also said in answer to another question, that al qaeda had been decimated. >> senator, senator lieberman met with her separately yesterday and here is part of what he said yesterday afterwards. >> i would not feel that her appearances and anything she
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said on those sunday morning talk shows september 16th would disqualify her for appointment to any other office. >> does his judgment give you any pause? >> i have great respect for senator lieberman, but on this issue, i'm making my own judgment. i'm very concerned about the judgment that she used in going on every single sunday show and making the representations that she made and then when she knew them to be wrong not correcting them. and in addition to that, these are important questions for someone that may be nominated to the important position of such stature as secretary of state. in addition to that, i think my colleague from maine raised some very important questions about her role in the 1998 embassy bombings as well that i appreciated senator collins with her experience those are questions that should be answered as well. >> she -- are you persuaded are
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or is senator collins from what she said persuaded she had line authority back in 1998, 14 years ago? she was the assistant secretary for african affairs then? >> as i understand it, you know, senator collins raised the questions about what her role was there. she has asked for answers about what her role was with respect to embassy security and embassy security requests that were made prior to those two -- the attacks on our embassies there and so i don't know that those questions have been answered but i think they're important questions that were raised by senator collins and i certainly respect her experience in this area. >> senator, some have suggested that she is being treated differently because she's a woman and a woman of color. that white men who come to the senate as potential nominees don't get grilled this way. can you respond to that? >> i think that that's absolutely false. you know, one of the nominations that they should look back on is the nomination of john bolton, but in addition to that, what disappoints me most when those
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types are claims are made is that it really does diminish real issues of sexism and racism that exists. so we're looking purely at her qualifications and also really actions that she took and i think that is our responsibility as senators and what we should be doing. >> there's another suggestion that has been made that this is a republican attempt to get her so wounded that john kerry is nominated instead, which would then open up a vacancy and lead to a special election in massachusetts that scott brown would then be teed up for. is there an effort here that has to do with senate politics, raw politics? >> absolutely absurd, andrea. i would remind you, this is an issue i was pursuing and others long before the election, before we knew whether scott brown was going to win that election. i think that claim is absurd. >> and finally, do you have any
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concerns about weakening her? she is now the u.n. ambassador. there's an important debate tomorrow on palestinian statehood in the general assembly. this is being played out before the entire world. if she does get nominated and does get confirmed and your questions are answered, and even now in her current job are we weakening her as the representative of the united states? >> andrea, i think that those issues will be decided on their own, but let me put it this way -- it was really the administration that has floated her name for this incredibly important position. it was the white house who asked her to go on every single sunday show in which she made the misrepresentations. and also, they knew by the 22nd that what she said was wrong and no one came forward and corrected it. so i think that these are important questions to ask, but let's not forget who has offered her name out there for the important position of secretary of state. >> and what would your advice be
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to the president? >> my advice to the president, and i don't presume to give him advice, it's his nomination, that he would make on his own decision, but obviously these are very important questions that have not been answered and i would expect that he would want answers to them before making this nomination. >> senator kelly ayotte, thank you very much for joining us today. >> thank you. >> and up next, the politico briefing mike allen on his breakfast with grover norquist. this is "andrea mitchell reports" only on msnbc. ♪ i'd like to thank eating right, whole grain, multigrain cheerios! mom, are those my jeans? [ female announcer ] people who choose more whole grain tend to weigh less than those who don't. multigrain cheerios a regular guy with an irregular heartbeat. the usual, bob? not today. [ male announcer ] bob has afib: atrial fibrillation not caused by a heart valve problem,
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i have a cold... i took dayquil, but i still have a runny nose. [ male announcer ] truth is, dayquil doesn't work on runny noses. what? [ male announcer ] it doesn't have an antihistamine. really? [ male announcer ] really. alka-seltzer plus cold and cough fights your worst cold symptoms, plus has a fast acting antihistamine to relieve your runny nose. [ sighs ] thank you! [ male announcer ] you're welcome. that's the cold truth! [ male announcer ] alka-seltzer plus. ♪ oh what a relief it is! ♪ [ male announcer ] can't find theraflu? try alka-seltzer plus for fast, liquid, cold, and flu relief. mike allen joins us now. you lad guests for breakfast at your politico breakfast. tell me about breakfast with grover norquist and how he explains himself given all the pressure for taxes right now as part of a deal. >> andrea, we saw a rapidly changing grover norquist. he left a big hole, a wide
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avenue, for house republican leaders to make a deal and not run afoul of his organization. he told us as we saw earlier he had a three-step plan. he said that he didn't want republicans to have their fingers on the murder weapon but there are ways around that. he says he wants the deal negotiated in public, on tv. he said it needs to be able to pass the laugh test back home. that certainly in the eyes of the beholder. he wants republicans to push for reforms which speaker boehner is doing. he doesn't want republicans to be blamed. and he's saying republicans need to be out there now making the case for what they want so that if taxes go up, taxpayers are less likely to blame them. the way he put it to me is, you don't stand there and wait for the train to hit you. >> is he redefining revenue? every time i've interviewed grover norquist he's always giving a rigid definition, the only kind of revenue increases
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he's been willing to contemplate are those that come from growth, from dynamic scoring, which is not -- everyone's idea of how to balance the budget. >> that's right. we saw him rapidly evolving from that position today. we started out, our interview, i said grover, in 1986, when you first did this pledge, the u.s. budget deficit was $200 billion. now it's a trillion. how can you say nothing has changed? he acknowledged things have changed, but he's trying to stick to his principles so when i talked to him about his relevance and whether he was like frosty the snowman and feeding away from us before our eyes with each sound bite like the ones we've been seeing on your show, he said i'm for lower taxes that gives me job security. people will always think their taxes are too high. but we saw today, andrea, is a real operator. you've covered him for years. he has a $7 million operation.
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a full-time staff. they spend a lot of money in campaigns. he wants to stay a player. and he wants these members to listen to him and to do that, he has to have this opening. so what he's saying is congruent with our reporting which is that there's more going on behind the scenes than there is in the camera and i can clearly see a way for there to be a deal by as the president said today, by christmas, andrea as you know, december 23rd what they think of as the real deadline up there and i see signs that both sides are going to find a way to that in time for christmas eve eve get out of here. >> mike allen, that's the most optimistic thing i've heard in a long time. thank you very much. thank you for joining us. >> thank you. >> what are democrats hoping to get out of a debt deal. we'll talk to montana senator john tester next here on "andrea mitchell reports." man these guys are slow. reminds me of our network before cdw virtualized it. how?
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damascus today, killing 34, injuring 80. no one has claimed responsibility. rebel forces say they have shot down a syrian air force jet -- fighter jet launching an attack to gain control of a damascus main international airport. 40,000 people have died in the 20-month civil war including soldiers, civilians and rebels. >> the epa banned bp from entering into any new federal contracts as part of a ruling on their conduct in the 2010 gulf oil spill. the suspension follows the $4.5 billion fine and manslaughter charge kas. three employees are expected to be arraigned over the deadly explosion. in the past the company has enjoyed multimillion-dollar contracts with the pentagon, providing energy to the u.s. military. defense secretary leon panetta broke ground at a new educational center at the vietnam veterans memorial in washington. the center will it tells the stories of the 58,000 soldiers who died in the vietnam war. the center will honor fallen soldiers from the wars in iraq
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and afghanistan. prince william and catherine middleton greeted by hundreds of fans as they arrived in cambridge. their first visit since being given their titles of duke and duchess of cambridge. they plan to tour the city and meet with cambridge university students during their visit. senate majority leader harry reid says raising the debt limit has to be part of any package. john tester a members of the banking committee. newly re-elected. >> thanks, andrea. >> thanks very much for being with us. you're from one of the reddest of red states, you squeaked through. congratulations on that victory. what does it now bring you right into the middle of these negotiations and a tough vote. what are the people back home telling you? >> the people back home have been telling us some time we need to work together as americans, not as democrats or republicans. i think the folks back home are really sick of the hyper partisanship in washington, d.c., which has resulted in really a lot of dysfunction and so especially when it comes to
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the issue of debt and deficit it's going to take folks working together as americans, put the parties aside, do what's right for the country and move on. >> you're willing to vote for higher taxes some changes in medicare, including eligibility age, tougher means testing. some kind of reduction in benefits for future beneficiaries not the current. >> i tell you what i want to see, i want to see a big package and a big package has to include some income and it has to include some reductions in expenditures. i think we can get hung up on the intrakasies of a package but the point is this, if we're going to really put this economy on a stage that can really create some jobs and move it forward, the package has to be big and it has to be bipartisan. and if we do that, i think that the minute points of it, we can work around and we can negotiate. it's not going to be perfect by
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any stretch of the imagination, but we can work around and make it a package that will work for america. the bottom line, it's never going to happen as long as we're very, very partisan in this. now, the good news is, i think there's folks on both sides of the aisle that want to see a big package through and i think that that's going to happen because there's a new cue lus of people in the middle that want to see this happen and i think it will happen and be good for the country and future generations. >> you're speaking, of course, as a senator and there's been a lot of bipartisanship since the election from senators on both sides. >> oh, no. >> more than there had been. when you look at the house democrats and the house republicans, they seem as far apart as ever. does it concern you as a senator that this all may rest with a house republican caucus that speaker may have difficulty controlling? >> yeah, absolutely it concerns me because i know what's transpired over the past many years where there's been way too much partisanship and where
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politics have trumped policy. you know, i saw it with a sportsman bill in the senate a few days ago. but that aside, this is big. this is a big deal for the country. and you're right, there's a lot of things you can point at and say this is disturbing, but the bottom line is if we can work together and i think there's a lot of people on the hill today and back home telling us to do that, work together, do what's right for the country and make sure you come up with a plan that fixes the problem. >> john tester, again, thank you. and congratulations and look forward to talking to you over the next six years in your new term. >> thanks, andrea. >> what do top business leaders want to see out of a budget and debt deal? we'll talk to honeywell ceo david cody joining us next here on "andrea mitchell reports." [ male announcer ] when was the last time something made your jaw drop? campbell's has 24 new soups that will make it drop over, and over again. ♪ from jammin' jerk chicken, to creamy gouda bisque.
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for real action on the nation's debt. one of the ceo's david cody, chairman and ceo of honeywell and on the ceo steering committee to fix the debt and a member of the simpson-bowles committee. thank you very much. i was fascinated what you said on "meet the press" on sunday. wanted to give you a chance to expand on that. what kind of money are you sitting on, that you would invest if you had certainty going forward, what the tax climate would be, spending climate would be and debt would look like in the future? >> here's the way i would look at it instead is, if you go back to june of this year, we have attrition that occurs every month. 400 or 500 that leave every month, retirements, take another job, whatever. back in june we started adding them back at only a replacement rate of 100 or 200 to replace the 500. we're steadily working our head
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count down. true for us, true for a lot of other companies and every single one of us has reduced our capital expenditures budget for the coming year because we just don't know what's going to happen. >> and what are you saying -- first of all what are you hearing on the hill today? you've been going around and meeting with leaders? what impression do you have from talking to them? are they willing to go against their own political interests, perhaps, and agree to higher taxes, to agree to real changes in medicare, medicaid and other entitlements? >> it's kind of interesting, because i would say because of the fact that we're -- we are getting to a point where it is a crisis, there's clearly a recognition you need to have taxes that you can count on and entitlements reform that you can count on, and i would say that was encouraging. we go around talking to everybody, it's good to hear that everybody recognizes that and that we need to come up with what we call a market credible $4 trillion deal.
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it's got to be $4 trillion that markets, people like me look at and go, that's real, these guys are governing, we can go ahead and invest and hire and trust the system's going to work. the difficulty is, getting them to actually work together and start to talk about this and say, i'll do this if you do this. that's the part that gets frustrating as a ceo. i can only be hopeful that there's at lot more going on behind the scenes than we're aware of or being told because otherwise it's very scary. we could be going off the fiscal cliff, some people think that could be just a small fire. my point is, you don't know that. it may -- you might be right, it might be a small fire. it could be the spark that says even the biggest economy in the world can't govern its own country any longer when it comes to debt. what hope is there? and then who knows where it goes. >> now, your proposal, the group of you, says you can't cut your way out, we can't tax our way
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out, we can't grow our way out. it's basically pointing to that pie chart that shows that it all has to be a combination of all three measures. >> correct. >> for it to be a $4 trillion deal that you think is credible, you and other ceos, does this have to be something that -- it's obviously not going to get passed by december 31st, but it has to be something with triggers with credible enforcement mechanisms going forward. is that a fair read? >> correct. i would say the first thing is to avoid the fiscal cliff and i include the debt ceiling as part of that definition. the second piece of it is to put in place a $4 trillion plan that markets can count on that says okay, july 4th we'll say, if you want financial independence day, that july 4th it would happen and if it doesn't, there's some kind of fall back or failsafe as you put it that says it defaults to this which is also $4 trillion. then at least you have something that markets can count on and i'm one of the guys that
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believes there's an opportunity for a row bugs economic recovery here in the u.s. -- robust economic recovery in the u.s. and get all the jobs creation if we could show we could govern and fix that $4 trillion problem and we could have an impact on the rest of the world who would look at it and go look what the united states just did, because every big democracy is wrestling with debt, japan, india, eu, u.s. this is an opportunity for us to provide global leadership. >> one problem that i have in just looking forward is, we had a plan they all voted for with sequesters an these were supposed to be the enforcement mechanisms. so who's going to believe them when they say we'll do this in six or nine months, when they're already running away from what they voted for? >> well, i would say this is kind of an escalation process and you could say, the sequester and fiscal cliff is working, at least it has everybody talking right now about something they didn't even want to talk about a year or so ago. i would say this comes in steps.
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the next step with a $4 trillion failsafe, you could -- simpson-bowles is in legislative language, demini chi-rivlin, but it puts it in a different position and you move the ball a heck of a lot farther down the field. >> mr. cody, as the ceo, what kind of treasury secretary do you want? what -- throw out some names. who do you think is the right person to lead us going forward at the most important critical economic job? >> tim geithner. i love tim. >> i think tim geithner and -- tim geithner's family have a few other ideas about that. i don't think he can be persu e persuaded. the job is still open. clearly there are a lot of issues on the table. >> yes. >> and thank you for coming and joining us today and for sharing what you and other members of the business community thinks to be done. >> thank you. thank you for highlighting this.
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it's an important issue for the american public. >> well, we're going to stay on it. come back and visit us often. >> okay. >> what political story will make headlines in the next 24 hours? that's next right here on "andrea mitchell reports." bp has paid over twenty-three billion dollars to help those affected and to cover cleanup costs. today, the beaches and gulf are open, and many areas are reporting their best tourism seasons in years. and bp's also committed to america. we support nearly 250,000 jobs and invest more here than anywhere else. we're working to fuel america for generations to come. our commitment has never been stronger.
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which political story will make headlines in the next 24 hours? chris is back with us. talking about powerball and power lunches. >> yeah. andrea, look. i already know what i'd do with my $500 million. i'd make a large donation to the field hockey team which my wife coaches. i read tickets are being bought 100,000 every minute. i mean, that is unbelievable. the numbers of my guess is way over $550 million. i'm enroute from new york to d.c. so i don't know if i have time to make a purchase. >> i have to make it for you. >> might have to designate you my liaison.
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>> then we have to negotiate this. let's talk about the tickets for lunch at the white house tomorrow. i don't think you can buy that ticket. >> i would love to have a ticket for that one, yeah. fascinating. again, i do think talking about this at the top. i think this is in most ways largely symbolic because mitt romney isn't going to be a major player in the fiscal cliff negotiations. he's not someone with a big constituency in congress, and a andrea, but the last presidential nominee and a guy that got 47.5% of the vote and lot letting it linger and reporters say, are you going to talk to mitt romney? smart of president obama to do, though, i think more symbolic than a practical impact. >> before the president campaigns for his budget priorities which are the higher taxes on the wealthy. >> to the tinker toys factory, i might add, too. my son will be thrilled to hear about that. >> montgomery county, pennsylvania. key swing district. let's talk, also, about
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something alan simpson said other things that was so interesting today. he said the president has committed and committed during the campaign to medicare reforms. and that those democrats who are saying, know, they're taking a vow against any of these changes in medicare for future beneficiaries, this is not what the president wants and the president is ready to deal. >> i would say, anandrea, this where focus on congressional democrats. this is a division of what president obama wants which is something like a grand bargain, a legacy-building moment in which all of this entitlement reform and our debt addressed at once. that's not necessarily what harry reid and nancy pelosi in the house and senate so there are differing tracts. i think democrats more united to this point on those sorts of things but i think you will see the differences come out closer to the cliff. >> chris, safe travels home. >> thank you. >> thank you so much. tomorrow on the show, delaware senator chris coons and
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carol loomis joining us. tamron hall has a look at when's next. coming up next hour, we are following several big stories. president obama takes his message on avoiding the fiscal cliff straight to the middle class. and even some business leaders. president says he's ready and willing to get the issue resolved in a bipartisan manner. speaking of bipartisanship, tomorrow the president will host mitt romney at the white house. their first face to face meeting since the election. when's the point? ambassador susan rice back on capitol hill for a second day trying to end the heated back and forth over her role in the investigation of the deadly attack on the consulate in benghazi. what republican senators are sayisa saying today. plaque psoriasis. i decided enough is enough. ♪ [ spa lady ] i started enbrel. it's clinically proven to provide clearer skin.
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i'm tamron hall. the "news nation" is